


Heart Beating Black

by Llealynarisia



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Addiction, May change the title later, Remember kids! Drinking corrupted ink is BAD for you, ink drinking, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24464641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llealynarisia/pseuds/Llealynarisia
Summary: As if Joey's scheduling, the workload, and the ink machine weren't bad enough, Sammy's got a new problem on his hands.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Heart Beating Black

**Author's Note:**

> While I haven't actually read Dreams Come to Life myself, I can definitely see why people would be upset about Sammy's characterization. That whole thing about getting addicted to drinking ink, though? That sits *just right* with my little horror-loving heart, and this came about as a result. I have some vague ideas for a follow up, but I'm not sure when I'll get the inspiration for that, so I'll keep this as a one-shot for now.

_Chu-chug. Chu-chug. Chu-chug._

Sammy Lawrence sat hunched over his desk, staring down at the blank music sheet. A long gone out cigarette was clenched in his jaws, the filter getting nervously rolled between his teeth. The fingers of his left hand clutched at his pounding forehead, the index finger fidgeting back and forth in his hair, while his right hand clutched a pen in a deathly grip.

_Chu-chug. Chu-chug. Chu-chug._

The lines of the sheet kept blurring out before coming back into focus. His breath came in with stutters and out with the slightest wheeze from the back of his throat. Random patches of his skin kept jumping and twitching with seemingly no provocation. His fingers were starting to get sore from how tightly he was holding the pen, but he couldn’t loosen his grip. He’d tried a few minutes ago.

_Chu-chug. Chu-chug. Chu-chug._

Every single inch of his blood vessels’ inner walls were itching with the intensity of a million ant bites. His left hand dropped down from its fruitless task of trying to abate his headache and started to scratch at his upper arm, only for him to suddenly stop himself, forcing his hand into a quivering fist. Scratching didn’t do anything; the spots that he had already scratched raw and bleeding under his clothes could attest to that.

His gaze drifted away from the sheet, over to the bottle of ink that sat a few inches away. A faint whiff of the acrid scent lingered in his nostrils, but he knew it wasn’t coming from that. No, it was coming from the pipes that chugged away all around him, in the ceiling and walls of his office, carrying the heartbeat of that damned machine. The incident that caused all this started to replay unbidden in his mind once more, prompting a small groan as he bit down on the cigarette butt.

Part of him still couldn’t believe that this was all the fault of one measly little _drop_ of ink. He had written it off as a coincidence at first; after all, how could one drop of ink sap away all the moisture in his mouth and throat, leaving them bone dry no matter how much water or coffee he drank? But after one of his increasingly more common late nights, while heading for the music department’s exit, he came across one of the more recently installed pipes (more of those things seemed to pop up whenever he so much as turned around) that had sprung a leak, a small puddle already formed on the floor underneath and slowly growing with each drip. He had been about to ignore it and walk on by - not his job, not his problem - when the smell of the ink hit his nose.

It didn’t smell any different from any other ink that he had had the misfortune of smelling. But he still found himself stopping mid-step. His eyes almost seemed to drag themselves over to watch the steady drip, following each drop down to the floor. His hand reached out, catching them in his cupped palm, and he watched as they puddled there, seeping into the lines of his hand and outlining them against the rest of his skin before it vanished beneath the rising amount of shiny black. The next thing he knew, his hand was up against his face, and he was tilting his head back.

The bitter taste spilling across his tongue was what allowed his mind to finally catch up with a scream of _what the_ _ **hell are you DOING,**_ and he started gagging and spitting out as much as he could. He didn’t even think of going to clean himself up, just turned around and rushed the rest of the way to the door and out. It wasn’t until he was halfway home that he realized that his mouth no longer felt like a desert. The blessed feeling of moisture only lasted for a few hours before bleeding away again.

That had been two nights ago.

And now… now he was sitting here, as that, that unnatural _craving_ wormed through his mind and his veins, the pipes chugging around him and his brain, his eyeballs, his bones, his intestines all throbbing in time with them, the sound of the sloshing ink drowning out all of his thoughts and

And even the music.

He couldn’t hear the music.

_Chu-chug chu-chug_ _**chu-chug chu-chug** _

_Tap tap tap_

Sammy’s head snapped up, almost swallowing the cigarette butt in the process. He spent a second choking before he spat the offending item back out, throwing it into his ashtray and turning to glare at the source of the noise.

His expression softened when he noticed who was peeking in through his door. “...I thought you’d gone home already, Jack.”

The lyricist, who had flinched back slightly from the glare, relaxed as well, stepping into the office proper and softly closing the door behind him. “Coulda said the same about you, Sammy. You ain’t lookin’ so well.”

Sammy couldn’t help the small grimace that crossed his face; Jack was the fifth or so person to ask after him today. “I’m fine,” he said, his tone sounding unconvincing even to himself.

Jack’s eyebrows showed how convinced he was, threatening to disappear under his bowler hat. “You know I don’t really like stickin’ my nose in other people’s business, but…'' he walked closer to Sammy’s desk. “You should take a sick day or somethin’, Sammy. You look like you’re gonna keel over any second.”

He put a hand on Sammy’s shoulder, and Sammy had to clench his jaw shut to bite back a whimper. Jack meant well, he reminded himself. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know about the raw spot he just put his hand on.

“I can’t,” he finally managed to say, after a breath and a swallow that got stuck in his throat. “I need to get this song written, and then we’re recording for two episodes tomorrow.” He glanced up with a wan smile, but a smile nonetheless, something almost no one else in the studio was privileged to. “I’ll be fine, Jack. I promise. Just one more day until the weekend.”

Jack looked at him for a long few seconds, then let out a small sigh, gently patting Sammy a couple times (Sammy’s eye twitching slightly with each pat). “Alright. Just hope I don’t come in tomorrow an’ hear about you passed out in the infirmary. G’night, Sammy.”

“Good night, Jack.” Sammy waited until the door had closed behind Jack before letting his head fall to his desk, a slow hiss escaping from between his teeth as one shuddering hand hovered over his shoulder. It took several minutes for the pain to die back down to a duller, more tolerable level; once it did, he slammed the pen down on the desk and slowly pushed himself out of his seat, wandering out of the office and to the bathrooms.

The second he got a glance of himself in the mirror, he had to do a double take. His face, already normally pale, was white as a sheet, bearing an unnatural sheen from the amount of sweat that covered it and making the dark circles under his eyes stand out all the more. It was normal for some strands of his hair to pull out of his low lying ponytail throughout the day, but an alarming number of them clung to his forehead and temples, and his eyes had a glazed look to them.

God. No wonder so many people had been asking if he was okay.

He turned on one of the sinks, trying to ignore the fact that his hands hadn’t stopped trembling since Jack left, and started washing off the sweat, drinking some of the water down despite knowing full well that it wouldn’t help. He left the faucet running as he slumped over the sink, elbows on the edge and his hands cradling his face. The sound of the rushing water reverberated through the empty space, and he tried to focus on it, his eyes drifting closed.

_Chu-chug. Chu-chug. Chu-chug._

They snapped back open as his heart seemed to skip a beat. He scrambled to turn the faucet off, but it quickly became apparent that that wasn’t the source.

_Chu-chug. Chu-chug. Chu-chug._

“Shut up.” His hands moved to cover his ears. “Shut up!”

_Chu-chug. Chu-chug. Chu-chug._

He grit his teeth, dragging his fingernails down his temples. With a snarl, he snapped his head up towards the ceiling, then stormed out of the bathroom.

If that damn machine wasn’t going to shut up, then he was going to _make it_ shut up!

The heartbeat got louder as he stomped up the stairs to the main floor, and louder still as he made his way through the halls.

_Chu-chug._ _**Chu-chug. CHU-CHUG. CHU-** _

Sammy rounded the corner, and the machine came into view.

It was completely still.

He stopped short, staring at it before looking around the room. Other than the room light, nothing else was on. All he could hear was silence.

No… no, that couldn’t be right, he had _just heard_ it running. His gaze darted around the room again in a more frantic manner, then fell on a small cart that stood before the machine’s nozzle. The upper tray was filled with bottles of ink, likely filled earlier tonight and waiting to be delivered to the animation department first thing in the morning.

His skin twitched and jumped.

_This is crazy,_ his mind argued as he slowly stepped towards the cart. _Drinking ink isn’t going to make you feel better. You know that!_

He knew that.

But his eyeballs throbbed, and his veins itched, and he could feel his intestines slither over and around each other in his gut, and his hands wouldn’t stop trembling even as he picked up a bottle and pulled out the stopper, and _he couldn’t hear the music_.

The ink burned as it slithered down his throat, and he started to choke as his gag reflex kicked in. He somehow managed to down the whole bottle, picked up a second one, and then he was slamming a third one back onto the cart as he doubled over, fighting against the urge to heave while his stomach did somersaults.

He wasn’t sure how long it took for the deep tremors running up and down his body to finally abate, but he finally managed to straighten back up with a shuddering breath. His stomach settled down, and the rest of his gut with it. He held up a hand, turning it back and forth in front of his face. It remained steady.

Pain still emanated from the raw spots, but he would just have to deal with that when he got home. He looked back down at the rest of the ink bottles. It likely wasn’t going to be feasible for him to keep coming up here for ink; the chances of someone catching him were too high. Maybe if he stored a couple in his desk…

He looked down again, and his arms were cradling almost a dozen.

_No, wait, that’s too many._

He turned away from the cart.

_Thomas is definitely going to notice this._

He carefully made his way down the steps back to the music department.

_What if you get caught?!_

He struggled for a few seconds with the door to his office before managing to get it open. He awkwardly knelt down before his desk, pulling out the bottom most drawer and depositing the bottles into it before sliding it closed and slipping back into his chair. For a few seconds, he simply stared at the back of his desk, trying to wrap his mind around what he had just done. His gaze fell on the blank sheet.

And the music swelled, sweeping into every corner of his mind with melodious joy.

Sammy picked up his pen, dipped it into the ink bottle that sat a couple inches away, and began to write.

The music played on.


End file.
